Monday, 1 August 2011

Salute

Laria carefully positioned the frame on the wall of her quarters. Behind the plexglass front was a picture of a Dominix Battleship, guns blazing, its armour glowing from the heat of the ordnance it had absorbed. Beneath the picture was a little title - "Stripey II - 113.07.30". She regarded it for a moment, and took a step to the right, and adjusted the next picture. "Stripey III - 113.07.30". It had been a day both to remember and forget.

Outside, in the docking back of the Republic Fleet station, sat "Stripey IV: Defiant". She had learnt, the hard, slow, embarrassingly stupid way, but she had learnt. And many were the miscreant, foolish and - she had to admit - unlucky foes who would suffer as a result of her hard won knowledge.

Next to the Dominix, dwarfed by the bulk of the battleship, sat the shiny form of a Proteus Strategic Cruiser. Laria peered down from her balcony at it. It was a... problem. She had been lent it. She could, technically, fly it. But she couldn't quite figure out how to fit it out to be effective. Confronted with the choice of rejecting the favour, insulting the lender by simply leaving it in a station and polishing it, and finding a use for it, she had opted for the latter. The mining lasers did look quite... small, on it, though. It was like hitching a knight's charger to the shafts of a cart. But it was, at least, functional. In a way.